Privacy

Read the Room · last updated 9 October 2026

Read the Room has no accounts, no sign-in and no advertising. It does not ask for your location, camera, microphone, contacts, photos or files, and it contains no third-party advertising or analytics SDKs. The one piece of personal data we hold is an email address, and only if you typed one into the waitlist form yourself. Plans are bought through Google Play, and we never see a card, a name or an email address.

What stays on your device

The television app keeps a few small settings in its own local storage. These stay on the device and are not readable by us, except where this page says otherwise:

• which picture cards this television has already shown, so a card is not repeated;
• whether the sound is muted;
• whether the how-to-play screen has been seen;
• a ticket from our server that says which games this television may open. If a plan has been bought on the Google account the television uses, the ticket also carries that purchase's token and whether it was the lifetime unlock or the subscription, so our server can check it with Google (see Purchases, below);
• the last list of games our server sent, so the app can open without a connection. On a television that has paid, it also says which plan the Google account is on and, for a monthly or yearly plan, when it renews or ends, as Google last told our server;
• in Imposter, Sketchy, Copycat and Inside Job, the code of the game room this television has open, so that it can rejoin the same room after a restart;
• in Imposter, Sketchy, Copycat and Inside Job, the numbers of the words this television has already shown, so its next room deals others first — Inside Job keeps a list of its own, apart from Imposter's, although its words come from Imposter's list;
• on a phone, a random seat token so that a dropped connection can rejoin the same game, and in Imposter, Copycat and Inside Job the name you last typed, so the form is filled in for you next time; and in Copycat, only for as long as that browser tab stays open, the room and turn this phone last drew on and how many tries it took at it, so that after a reload in the middle of a turn the room can be told which unfinished stroke to rub out.

The Imposter, Sketchy, Copycat and Inside Job word numbers are also sent to our server: when one of those rooms is opened, the television sends the numbers of the words it has already shown, so the room can deal different ones. They are word numbers from the game's own list — nothing about a person — and they are kept in the room and go when it does.

In Sketchy, the pictures under Tonight's drawings are held in the television app's memory only. They are not saved anywhere, and they go when you leave the game or close the app. In Copycat, the picture the television draws again at the end of a round is the one the room holds, described below; the television keeps no copy of it.

Uninstalling the app, or clearing the browser's data, removes all of it.

What a game room holds, and for how long

Playing a networked game creates a temporary room on our server, addressed by a four-character code shown on the television. While the room is open it holds only what the game needs:

• the game in progress — the board or the running order of cards, whose turn it is, what has been revealed;
• random seat tokens, which identify a seat rather than a person;
• in Code Talk, the one-word clues players type, so the television can show them;
• in Sleep Tight, Imposter, Copycat and Inside Job, the name each player types for themselves, so the television can put it on their house or their name board. Type whatever you want to be called — it is shown on the screens in the room you are sitting in: the television, and the other players' phones too, on the lists and ballots they vote from and, in Copycat, beside the pen. It goes when the room does;
• in Imposter, Sketchy, Copycat and Inside Job, the numbers of the words the television has already shown, described above;
• whether the television that opened the room had unlocked the games — a yes or a no, nothing about the purchase — so a room opened on the free games deals only from those;
• in Sketchy, the drawing being made — the lines and fills the drawing phone sends, as positions and colours on the page — so the television can show it and a screen that reconnects can catch up. Only the current drawing is kept: it is deleted when the next word is dealt;
• in Copycat, the round's picture — each stroke a player draws on their phone and confirms, as positions on the page, with which seat drew it and that seat's colour. It is shown on the television and on the other players' phones in the same room, so everybody can see the picture they are adding to, and the television draws it again at the end of the round. Only the current round's picture is kept: it is replaced when the next round is dealt. The stroke still being drawn is passed on to the television as it is drawn; the room holds it in memory only until it is confirmed, taken back or the turn moves on, and never writes it to storage.

A room deletes itself three hours after its last activity, and at most twelve hours after it opened, and everything in it goes with it. Nothing is archived, backed up, or used for anything else. Rooms are not searchable and are not linked to each other or to you.

The waitlist

The app is on Google Play for Android TV and Google TV. If your television is not one of those, our website lets you give us an email address to be told, once, when Read the Room reaches more devices. That is the only place we ask for one, and giving it is entirely optional — nothing in the app asks for an address, and nothing in the app requires one.

If you do give us one, then:

• we store the address and the date you gave it, and nothing else — no name, no IP address, no browser or device details, no record of where you came from;
• it is used for one email, when the app reaches more devices, and for nothing else;
• it is never sold, shared, rented, or passed to any other company for their own use;
• it is not linked to anything you do in the app — the app never sees it, and there is nothing in a game that could be matched to it.

The list is stored on Cloudflare with the rest of this service. To be taken off it, write to privacy@readtheroom.party and the address is deleted. The email we send will also carry a one-click unsubscribe link, and once that email has been sent the list has done its job and is deleted.

Purchases

Eight games can be played without paying. Everything else is unlocked by a plan — monthly, yearly or lifetime — bought through Google Play. Google Play takes the payment. We never see your card, your name or your email address.

• When a purchase goes through, or you press I already paid, the television app sends our server two things: the purchase token Google Play gave it — a long random string that stands for that one purchase — and whether it is the lifetime unlock or the subscription. Our server asks Google whether that purchase is real and paid for, confirms it to Google, and sends back a signed ticket, which stays on the television.
• Each time the app loads its games, it shows our server that ticket, and our server asks Google again whether the purchase still stands. That is how a refund, or a plan that has run out, is noticed the next time the app opens. For a monthly or yearly plan, our server also reads which plan it is and when it renews or ends from Google's answer, and passes that on to the television to show.
• Google also tells our server when a purchase changes — bought, renewed, cancelled or refunded. Our server uses that only to look the purchase up with Google and confirm it; it cannot unlock or lock anything with it.

Our server stores nothing about a purchase. There is no database of tokens, orders or buyers. Google's answer is held in our server's memory for about a minute, so that one launch does not ask twice, and then it is forgotten. Our server's log notes when Google tells us a purchase changed, with the first eight characters of its token so that a fault can be traced — never the whole token, and nothing about who.

What we count

We record a small number of events so we know which games get played and whether they finish. Nothing in this identifies a person or a device:

The approximate location is derived by our hosting provider from the network connection. We do not store IP addresses, and we keep no identifier that would let these events be tied together, to a device, or to you. There is no way for us to reconstruct who played a game.

What we never do

• No accounts, profiles or phone numbers. The only personal data we keep is a waitlist email address you chose to give us, described above. A name typed in Sleep Tight, Imposter, Copycat or Inside Job is not kept: it lives in the game room, on our server, only while that room does, and is never linked to you or to anything else. Neither is a Sketchy drawing or a Copycat picture: each lives in the room until the next word or round is dealt, and goes with the room at the latest. A Copycat picture is shown only to the television and the phones in that room — never to anyone outside it.
• No advertising, and no advertising or attribution SDKs.
• No third-party analytics, crash reporting or tracking SDKs.
• No tracking across other apps or websites.
• We do not sell or share personal data. There is none to sell.

Who else is involved

The app is hosted on Cloudflare, which serves the pages, the pictures and the music, and runs the temporary game rooms. Cloudflare processes network requests on our behalf as our hosting provider. Google Play sells the plans and takes the payment, under Google's own privacy policy; our server asks Google about a purchase token, and Google tells our server when a purchase changes, as described under Purchases. No other company receives anything.

Children

Read the Room is a party game for a general audience. It is not directed at children, and because it has no accounts and collects no personal data it does not knowingly collect anything from anyone, of any age.

Your choices

There are no accounts, so there is no account to delete. If you joined the waitlist, you can ask for that address to be removed at any time, or ask for a copy of what is held against it, which is the address and the date; write to privacy@readtheroom.party. To remove everything the app has kept on your device, uninstall it or clear the browser data for this site. To end a game room immediately, close the app — the room expires on its own shortly afterwards.

To cancel a monthly or yearly plan, open g.co/play/subscriptions on a phone or a computer, signed in with the Google account the television uses, choose Read the Room and cancel it — a television cannot manage a subscription itself. Every game stays unlocked until the end of the period already paid for. Payments and refunds are handled by Google Play.

Changes

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. Material changes will also be reflected in the app's Data safety information on Google Play.

Contact

Questions about this policy can be sent to privacy@readtheroom.party.